


Prys

by thewintertrash



Series: Mnemonic [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:55:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewintertrash/pseuds/thewintertrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prys (French, noun) It embodies knightly worthiness on a number of levels. A knight who has prys is loyal, brave, polite, courtly, proud, refined in taste, and perhaps a bit foolhardy and arrogant, quick to take anger at an insult and fast to accept a challenge or dual.</p><p>-</p><p>Clint kicked at the leg of Rogers’ bed.</p><p>“You better be worth it,” he said, and promptly fell asleep, half finished cup of coffee in his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prys

**Author's Note:**

> So this story got a lot of feedback which makes me go !!!!!!!! so thank you I love all of you.
> 
> Part 2. shorter, but things start to happen. Also realizing I fucked myself over by naming chapters after obscure literary terms fffffff
> 
> Also, unrelated to this chapter, but I finally figured out how to get Peggy (and Angie) into this story bc fuck canon I do what I want (✿ﾉ◉◡◉)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

“Shit, shit kid, goddammit Rogers,” Clint swore as Rogers collapsed in the elevator. He really was a pitiful sight, covered in blood and bruises. He felt kinda bad for kneeing him in the face earlier, but what did he expect jumping on him like that? He might have been saying something, but since Clint missed stuff still with his hearing aids even if you were talking right to his face, well. How was he supposed to understand if you were talking to his knees? Who even launches themselves around a guy’s knees like that anyway? Oh well. At least he was nice enough to catch Rogers instead of just letting him fall on the floor.

He ended up carrying Rogers to the infirmary, and, aww, blood on his shirt, where he let the doctors do their thing. He also forwarded them his medical history, which holy shit it was long.

He and Natasha had done research on him while he was in the cell with the _Winter Soldier_ — which fucking blew his mind, by the way, that Rogers saw what he was capable of and still volunteered to go into that cell. That guy had had more knives hidden in his pockets than even Natasha when they brought him in, yet Rogers had managed to not only leave his apartment mostly unscathed, he’d actually gotten the Winter Soldier to _protect_ his ass. What the fuck, honestly.

Rogers, though, this nerdy little dude, was asthmatic, anemic, had a heart murmur, scoliosis, had had rheumatic fever once and pneumonia three times, and had been to the hospital on almost as many occasions as Clint. A lot of those times weren’t even because of his chronic illnesses, but because he’d gotten into fights. This was the second time he’d broken his left arm _alone_. Rogers was a squirrelly little bro that was for sure.

Clint also believed what he said about Barnes being the Winter Soldier, and Nat did too. The problem was proving the brainwashing. But, well. The Black Widow was supposed to have been beyond saving too, and look where she was now.

He sat in the medical bay texting Nat as the doctors worked, waiting on the comprised list of his injuries. 

 _From: Nat 3:27am  
_ We need to go to his apartment

Clint groaned. Going to Rogers’ apartment meant talking with the neighbors and dealing with the police when all Clint really wanted was to go back to _his_ apartment and take a nap. He walked over to the coffee machine and started making a cup. Mm, shitty office coffee. 

 _To: Nat 3:29am  
_ fine but youre paying for coffee 

 _From: Nat 3:30am  
_ How’s rogers? 

 _To: Nat 3:31am  
_ still breathing. he fuckin passed out in the elevator i had to carry him to the ward 

 _From: Nat 3:31am  
_ You did knee him in the face 

 _To: Nat 3:32am  
_ at least i didnt strap him to a chair and beat him!! 

 _To: Nat 3:32am  
_ please tell me your actually gonna make them pay his bills 

 _From: Nat 3:33am  
_ :) :) 

 _From: Nat 3:33am  
_ ETD? 

 _To: Nat 3:36am  
_ docs say theyre gonna wake him up in 30. i'll see how hes doing then we can leave

She didn’t text back after that, but she didn’t need to. They knew each other too well by now. He had the ability to nap anywhere, so twenty-nine minutes later he woke himself up with only a slight crick in his neck, which he counted as a win. His coffee was lukewarm, though. He could never come out on top.

It took a little coaxing to wake Rogers up and when he finally did he was totally out of it, from a combination of a concussion, blood loss, and the drugs. The strangulation was no laughing matter either; Clint cringed at the thought of that metal arm wrapped around his throat. Figured Rogers would be a least a little wary of the Winter Soldier after that, but nope. Then again, he seemed to have no preservation skills whatsoever, so it made sense in a vaguely self-destructive way.

All in all, it could and should have been worse, and Rogers will recover eventually. He told Nat as much when he finally went to go meet her.

She also handed him another shirt, because she knew him well enough that he’d forget to change after Rogers got blood on it. He didn’t know what he’d do without her.

They get to the apartment nearing five in the morning, and you know, standard murder scene of an assassin, been there done that. It was as Rogers said, there were four bros with guns and one of them got thrown out a window. (Clint’s been thrown out of enough windows for his body to feel a vague twinge of sympathy for the guy.) Rogers’ apartment stunk heavily of paint too, so his theory about the paint triggering something in the Winter Soldier was plausible. So far, everything Rogers said checked out, but they still had to interview the neighbors.

That’s, well. That’s when it got _weird_.

Mostly because if what they said was true, Rogers might as well be an actual goddamned Saint.

~*~

The first one they interviewed was a young black woman, age 24, named Jessica Henderson, with a seven–year-old son named Damien. They lived next door to Rogers.

“What happened here? Those agents won’t tell me anything. Are me and my son safe? And what about Steve Rogers?”

“Everything is under control, ma’am, you and your son are safe,” Nat said, putting on her ‘detective in a crime show’ hat.

“Yeah, and what about Steve?” she asked, hands crossed and clearly Done With This Shit. “Is he all right? I woke up over three hours ago scared outta my mind because it sounded like gun shots goin’ off next to my head, and now there’s four dead men in his apartment. Is he safe or not?”

“Rogers is currently in our protection,” Clint said. The kid peaked out from her apartment and stared at him. He ducked back inside when Clint noticed.

“Does that mean he’s ‘alive but in a hospital bed in a coma’ or ‘alive, but we’ll never hear from him again’?”

“It means he’s alive and I’m sure you’ll get to see each other soon,” Nat said and Henderson relaxed slightly. “Now, the police said they found a note detailing that you would be left his possessions baring that he didn’t contact anyone within a month. Why you and not his family?”

“Poor thing doesn’t have any. We became good friends, though, and he comes over all the time to babysit my son while I’m at work or running errands.”

“You trust some random dude in Brooklyn to babysit you son?”

“ _Hell_ no.” She looked at Clint like he was stupid. “But you trust Steve."

“You and Steve must be close then. We just want to find out who could have done this. Do you have any ideas?” Nat asked.

Not like they already didn’t know, but it was best to find out what the general public knew, or thought what happened. That way, they could figure out who to throw into witness protection before what they knew got them killed.

“Look, I already told the cops. Steve is a _good guy_. Like, I mean it. He’s the kind of person to help little old ladies across the street and rescue cats from trees. He’s always giving his hats and scarves to the homeless but if you ask him he’ll just say he lost them, even though he’s always getting sick because of the cold. He’s a _good guy_. The best I’ve ever met. I mean, he gets into a lot of fights, mostly trying to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves, but I don’t know of anyone who would do _this._ ”

“What did he help you with?” Nat asked, her voice soft. Henderson glanced back to her apartment and pursed her lips.

“I moved in here about six years ago. I was a young single mother who was barely eighteen and completely alone in the world. I had just run away from a bad relationship and was cut off from my family and didn’t know anything. Steve helped me out a lot. I couldn’t afford daycare or a regular babysitter, but Steve would look after Damien for free when he wasn’t sick. Refused to take any money from me. I found out that you gotta repay him in food, since he often forgets to take care of himself, especially when he’s sick. But that’s just how he is.”

“You take care of him? There isn’t anyone else?

Her eyes grew soft and distant. “There used to. It’s not really my place to say, but he lost everyone he was close to. You know how that can make some people real mean? Not Steve. He didn’t want anyone to hurt like he did, so he did his best to help everyone around him. He’s a good guy. He’s honest, brave, trustworthy... after what happened to me, I never thought I’d trust another man in my life, but then I met Steve.”

“He sounds like a great guy. So this happening must seem unbelievable.”

“What? No, I believe it. Steve may be nice, but I can’t tell you how many times he’s come home with a black eye because he got in some fight he had no chance of winning. Obviously he tried to pick a fight with the wrong people. What’s unbelievable is that he survived all this.”

Nat raised an eyebrow. Clint had to suppress a smile; this woman had no idea how right she was.

“Are you Hawkeye?” the kid asked, appearing behind his mother’s legs and looking up at Clint with wide, brown eyes.

“Damien! Sorry—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Clint said, squatting down so he was the kid’s height. “Lemme guess, the bow and arrow gave it away.”

His eyes got even wider. “That’s so cool! You’re an _Avenger_!”

He grinned. “That’s me.”

“Is it true you can shoot an arrow without looking?”

“Yep.”

“And that you can catch an arrow midair?”

“Yep!”

He gaped. “ _Awesome._ Steve and I always play Avengers together. I’m not allowed to be the Hulk anymore, ’cause I always break something and mama gets mad.”

“Yes she does. Damien, how about you go and wait in the apartment like mama asked?”

“Can I ask him to sign my Hawkeye comic? _Please_?”

She looked at Clint, who shrugged. (Privately, he liked the attention a little. Okay, maybe a lot. He loved the attention fuck you Tony Stark he didn’t need a fancy robot suit and billions of dollars to get recognized.) Damien sprinted back to apartment with all the energy of a seven year old. Seriously, it was 5:30 in the morning. No one should have that much energy.

“Damien adores Steve. Everyone who meets him does. He’s really okay?”

“He’s recovering,” Nat said. “He didn’t make it out unscathed, but he’ll be good as new soon.”

“That man,” she said, shaking her head. “What has he gotten into now?”

Damien came back with the comic and Clint signed it with a flourish.

“Can I see your bow?”

“Damien, I think that’s enough. I’m sure they have lots of work to do.”

“Are you gonna help Steve?”

“You bet!”

“Good! ’Cause there’s nothing an Avenger can’t do, right?”

“Exactly.”

He grinned, and Clint found his faith in him a little weird, but whatever.

“Can I ask you just one more question?” Nat asked as Henderson ushered Damien back into their apartment.

“There was a picture of a soldier in his apartment.” No there wasn’t, Nat snooped in Rogers’ bag while he was in the cell. “Can you tell me who that is?”

She let out a deep sigh and chewed on her lip.

“That would be Sergeant James Barnes, or Bucky. He was Steve’s best friend, basically grew up in each other’s back pockets. He went to the war and never came home. That was about five years ago now. Steve… he was never really the same after that. But like I said, not my place to tell.”

They thanked Jessica Henderson for her time and moved onto the other neighbors.

Most of the conversations went about the same way. They were very concerned with Rogers’ wellbeing, and once told he was okay, they were all too eager to talk about just how _great_ Rogers was.

They talked to his landlord and his wife, Mihail and Anna Papadopoulos (Clint didn’t even try to pronounce their last name, but of course Nat got it on the first try), and he was indeed seventy years old and had large, bug-eyed glasses. His wife, two years younger, stood next to him, stooped over a cane.

“That Rogers, what has he got himself into now? I keep tellin’ him, don’t I keep tellin’ him Anna? Keep tellin’ him to stop stickin’ his nose where it don’t belong, but that don’t stop him. Kinda thinkin’ he likes gettin’ punched. Anna, tell ‘em about the time he got thrown out of a car.”

“It wasn’t a _car,_ it was a _bar._ I swear, sometimes I think your hearin’ is worse than your sight. Poor Steve, he tries so hard to do the right thing! Got kicked out of the bar up the street for starting a fight. Swears up and down he some man slip something into a lady’s drink—”

“An’ he came back round with two teeth missin’ and his face bleedin’ and his nose all crooked. Don’t I keep tellin’ him? I keep tellin’ him, but nothin’ gets through that stubborn head of his.”

“He always pays rent on time, though. And he helps me water my garden and do some chores around the house. I always tell him not to sweep because it aggravates his asthma, but he does it anyway.”

“Like I said. I keep tellin’ him, but he keeps tryin’ to take the world on all by himself. Never listens. I tell him he can’t do it alone, but does he listen?”

“We’ll pray for his recovery. I hope he gets better soon. Is there somewhere we can send him a get well card?”

Nat gave her an address and assured them that all the damages would be repaired to the apartment by the end of the day. They didn’t believe them, since the government never did anything quickly. Clint wanted to correct her, and say the government never moved quickly unless it was to cover something up, but he kept his mouth shut.

Next they talked to Troy Mason, who lived down the hall from Rogers. He was a forty-year old black man with long dreads tied back neatly in a ponytail.

“Steve saved my life. I mean it, man. I served in the war, enlisted right after 9/11. Never came back the same. I couldn’t sleep, so I started using. It was small stuff at first, but then it was anything I could get my hands on. I lost my job, my family, everything that should have mattered to me didn’t, not as much as my next hit.”

Mason rubbed the inside of his arm nervously.

“I got low. I’m not proud of who I was. Steve caught me stealing from him once, but he didn’t get angry at me. Said I could take what I need, but that I would promise to eat dinner with him. I thought it was stupid, but I went anyway. I ended up hangin’ out at his place a lot, and I never really realized before how much I missed havin’ someone care about me, ya know? ‘Cause Steve really did care, he didn’t do it out of obligation or nothin’. The drugs had become more important than bein’ close to somebody. Eventually he convinced me to go to rehab. He never did anything, never pressured me, but I dunno, man, there’s just somethin’ about Steve that makes you want to be a better person.

“I went to rehab. Been sober for two years and four months now. I got a job being a valet at the hospital that I got on Steve’s good word. I reconnected with my family, even got me a honey now, real sweet girl, and I do my best to treat her right. Couldn’t have done it without Steve’s help. I tried to pay him back for what I stole and what he did for me, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Eventually I got the idea to commission a painting from him. I saved up and paid him double of what he asked, and now I got a Steve Rogers original on my wall. That kid’s gonna be big someday, and I can say I got an original.”

The pride he emanated was a little overwhelming and pretty contagious, and Clint didn’t even know the guy. Whatever. He deserved good, he figured.

Then they spoke with Gracia Capello, who lived right below Rogers. She was a widowed 38-year-old immigrant mother of three, and they caught her just before she left for work.

“Steve Rogers is the reason my children have enough to eat,” she said proudly. “He taught me how to speak English! He helps teach me and my children. He did not want any money, but I help him learn Spanish in return. He is a good boy. Oh, he is so kind and good. I always tell him that he gets in too much trouble! I always do! He tries to hide from me when he gets hurt, but I know. A mother knows about these things.”

She narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at them as she said this, and Clint got the feeling she somehow knew exactly how bad of shape Rogers was in.

“I always make sure to bring him some home cooking. He’s too thin! No meat on his bones! I worry about every winter. He always gets so sick, pobre bebé. I owe him so much, it is the least I can do to share my cooking. Back in Mexico I was the top of my class, but here I was a cleaner and could not find any more work. But now I work as a translator for a big company and my children live well. I will pray for him,” she said, clutching the cross around her neck.

…and so on and so forth.

They interviewed a few more of his neighbors, but at this point it was just superfluous. Rogers was a goddamn Saint, yeah, he got it already. He thought that there must be something fishy about this, because no one could be truly _that_ honest and _that_ good of a person. It just didn’t happen.

He expressed as much to Nat when they stopped for breakfast on their way to Rogers’ part time job.

“I mean,” he said around a mouthful of waffles, “there has to be _some_ dirt on this guy. There’s no way he can go through life without having a few skeletons in the closet.”

“Well, he did lie on his enlistment forms to try to get into the army. And he’s spent a few nights in jail while during some protests.”

“Okay, those don’t count.”

“Falsification of his information on legal documents to try to join the army doesn’t count?”

“Who hasn’t lied on legal forms before? He probably did it to be all noble and fight for his country and shit.”

“He did it five times,” she said, staring at him with one eyebrow slightly raised.

“So he’s stubborn. And crafty. Still doesn’t count.”

“I don’t know what you want, Clint. He doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet, not like you and me.”

“Yeah, well,” he started, but realized he didn’t have a rebuttal. “ _Speaking_ of in the closet. Do you think he knows he’s in love with Barnes or do we have to break it to him? I mean, he was wearing dog tags around his neck, and you know they’re not his.”

“More like does he know that it’s requited.”

“No shit?”

“Clint, Barnes not only abandoned his mission, but he broke through _five_ _years_ of brainwashing. You don’t do that for just anyone.”

“Good point.”

“Though, who knows what’s going to happen now. Five years is a long time. You don’t come out of that clean, whether or not he remembers who he was before.”

“Maybe that’s his skeleton,” he mused. “He’s willing to defend someone most people would call a traitor to his country and a straight up evil villain. Probably would even if he knew the extent of the Winter Soldier’s file. Maybe even _especially_ then.”

“Rogers isn’t most people.”

“No,” he agreed. “But neither are we.”

They shared a look, knowing their next step without saying it aloud.

~*~

“So he runs a website,” Nat said on their way to Rogers’ job.

“Really? About what?”

“Super people. He gives out tactical advice to avoid villains.”

“Tactical advice? That guy?”

She lightly shrugged one shoulder. “It’s actually not bad.”

‘Not bad’? That was Nat speak for ‘I’m actually almost impressed they’re not completely incompetent’ which was a pretty big compliment from her. He got it after he managed to prove that it _was_ possible to shoot the wings off a fly without killing it. But whatever. Tactical advice that wasn’t complete shit from a guy that was 5’4 and weighed 103 pounds was just as cool.

“He wrote about you.”

“Yeah? So what.” Privately he was impressed that he even remembered to include him, although he was probably just a footnote and the Avengers page. No, he wasn’t bitter, that was the coffee he was drinking.

His phone buzzed.

“I sent you the link. You should read the comments, too.”

He shrugged and chugged the last of his coffee.

~*~

Apparently Rogers had gotten his job at the store after he’d been caught washing some rather nasty words off the shop owner’s window. The shop owner in question was Hassan Sajjadi, a Pakistani who had fled his home some eight years ago with his family in hopes for a better life in America. Well, not that the people here were much nicer, but at least there was a lesser chance of bombs falling from the sky.

“This was about four years ago now. I had come in one morning and there on the shop windows was graffiti telling me to ‘go home Bin Laden’, among other things. I am not even Saudi Arabian!” he said and then sighed. “But people don’t care. They see my skin and nothing else and I hate to say it, but I was used to this. It was not the first time I had heard things like that, and it was not even the first time my windows have been vandalized. So when I saw my windows that day, I just felt weary. A little more of my pride died that day.

“But this time was unusual! I realized, as I looked closer, part of it had already been scrubbed off. There was a bucket of water, soap, and rubber gloves left in front of the window and underneath was a note saying ‘I’ll be back to finish the job’ signed S.R. I knew that I should have just washed it off myself before the store got busy, but I had to admit, I was very curious who this S.R. was and even more curious to see if they would actually come back. Experience told me that they would not, but my gut told me to wait, so I waited.

“I am very grateful I did. Steve had come back and to finish cleaning my window. He had stopped because he was actually on his way to a doctor’s appointment, but saw my window and couldn’t leave it like that. He was so sick at the time too! I tell him, no no no, you’re sick, you go rest, but he wouldn’t listen. Instead he looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I know I can’t wash away all the prejudice you’ve faced, but I can at least do this. I know a lot people have forgotten that this country was founded in part for religious freedom, but I haven’t.’”

Clint stood by his claim that Rogers could be a motivational speaker.

“What happened after that?” he asked.

“I offered him a job on the spot. He is a good worker, even though I know this is not what he wants to do. He is a good man, and I do not take his friendship for granted. There are too little good men these days.”

Clint was starting to agree.

~*~ 

He told himself that he wasn’t going to look at the link that Nat had sent him, but when had he ever been able to resist temptation? Besides, they were at a mission briefing with Maria Hill that Clint had lost track of like, five minutes ago, so whatever. He’d glance over whatever Rogers had written about him and get Nat off his back, because he knew she’d bug him about it later.

It was a forum page, designed so it had his main bio and new posts and threads below it for people to discuss things and add comments. He skimmed over his bio and stats and fights he’d been spotted in, that stuff was pretty standard, so he clicked on ‘most recent’ for discussions. He closed out of it the second he saw it was discussing his deafness. He was definitely not going down that rabbit hole.

Thirty seconds later he reopened the page, because goddammit he was curious and also probably a masochist. Well, Nat had told him to look, so it couldn’t be _that_ bad, could it?

stevegr88:

> So there are rumors going around that Hawkeye might have been deafened in a fight. I know some people say it was probably during that last fight with Dr. Doom back in April, but does anyone know for sure?
> 
> **IMPORTANT EDIT**** Alright guys, I’m deleting some of your comments and if after this someone else posts some bull shit ableist comment on this forum **I am going to ban you.**
> 
> Anyone who has been here long enough will know that I will always defend Hawkeye as a hero and an Avenger, and that is not about to change now where he may or may not be (partially) deaf. But, apparently some people still don’t get it. So here we go again.
> 
> Hawkeye goes into battle with a team including Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor. He doesn’t have a billion dollar war suit or Godlike powers to protect him. What _does_ he have? A Kevlar suit and a bow and arrow. He fights along side some of the strongest people of the world and he does it with a BOW AND ARROW and he _holds his own._ That’s not ‘weak’ or ‘lame’, that is Badass with a capital B.
> 
> Hawkeye is a hero, more so than anyone talking shit about him. He does good things because he can, and he should. He gets hurt. He falls down. But he always, _always_ gets back up and helps people. He doesn’t even ask for a thanks in return.
> 
> And if he is deaf, NONE OF THAT CHANGES. He’s still a hero. He’s still brave. In fact, I think it makes him braver and stronger since he’s still continuing to fight with a disability that could possibly severely hinder him in battle.
> 
> I’ve seen a lot of people badmouthing heroes (*coughcough* J. Jonah Jameson *coughcough*) but rarely have they been so offensive as people commenting here that Hawkeye has somehow lost his worth as a person and a hero because he might have a disability. I’m trying to keep this short for time’s sake, but there will never be enough words to properly convey just how _insulting_ and _infuriating_ comments like that are.
> 
> Do you, people who commented on this post, risk your life everyday to help others? No? Then sit the fuck down. No, seriously, _fuck you_. I have zero tolerance for hate speech like that. I’m not going into more detail on this subject in the public forum, but if you want to ask me more questions you’re welcome to PM me.
> 
> And if you’re one of those people posting awful things, what is your damage? Go outside and pet a dog or something. Realize there are better things to do with your life than hate people you’ve never met for doing what they can to make the world a better place. Maybe you could even learn from their example.
> 
> **TL;DR: Hawkeye, deaf or not, could still kick all your asses and anyone who tries to say people with disabilities are somehow lesser than anyone else, you will be banned from this forum for a week. If you come back and continue to do so, then you will be banned forever.**
> 
> S.R.

He reread the post three times. Then he glanced through the comments.

> jeez, you know it’s serious if stevegr88 is swearing. you tell them!!!
> 
> wow, were ppl really saying stuff like that?? poor hawkeye doesn’t deserve that ://
> 
> Thank you so much for removing those comments and sticking up for Hawkeye. I can’t even tell you how much that means to me.  
>  -Signed, a Hearing Impaired Girl
> 
> i’m actually crying rn. thank you thank you thank you <3333
> 
> Wow, I never thought about it that way. Hawkeye is way cooler than people give him credit for. Consider me now a Hawkeye stan.
> 
> who was saying hawkeye wasn’t worthy of being a hero?!?! FIGHT ME (ง'̀-'́)ง

His phone buzzed with an alert from the infirmary, which interrupted his reading. (There were over a hundred comments on that post. What the _fuck._ )

“Shit.”

“Something you’d like to share with the class, Barton?” Hill asked.

“Well, Rogers woke up.”

“Somehow that doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Nat said.

“It’s an emergency alert. That never sounds like a good thing.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Nat said to Hill as they stood up. 

“I expect a report on every move the Winter Soldier makes. Just because Rogers trusts him doesn’t mean you should. Don’t relax your guard — you have no idea what they’ve done to his mind."

“I think I have some idea."

“Different circumstances, Natasha.”

“Same results, though.”

Hill gave both of them a hard look. “Don’t get soft on me now.”

Clint grinned. “Never.”

They left and headed back to the infirmary. God, it was eleven in the morning already. All he wanted to do was sleep.

“What’s going on?” Nat asked as they entered Rogers’ room.

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” Dr. Linda Carter replied. “He woke up about twenty minutes ago coughing up mucus and blood and his temperature spiked to 103.4 degrees. His lungs started filling up with fluid, so I’m thinking it’s pulmonary edema. Now what caused it, I have a pretty strong suspicion that it could be ARDS, or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, probably brought on by the severe trauma his body went through last night — which is why he should have been brought here _first._ ”

“Hey! I tried, alright?”

She spared him a glare but otherwise ignored him. “ARDS could also be a symptom of pneumonia, which would explain the fever. Given his history and his general luck with illnesses, I’d say it the pulmonary edema was brought on both by the trauma and the pneumonia. We’ll have to run more tests and get another x-ray of his chest, though, to make sure.”

“But you’re pretty sure it is.”

“He spent hours running around in freezing cold in acute distress and had two severe asthma attacks less than two hours apart _and_ was strangled and beaten. That on top of his history? I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.”

“He’ll pull through, though?”

She sighed and adjusted her glasses. “He’ll need to be in the ICU until his fever goes down, and if it gets any higher, he might be in some serious trouble. Right now under constant supervision, he’ll pull through. He has to _stay here_ and _rest_ , though, for that to happen.”

Clint put up his hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t look at me. Rogers’ probably gonna be the one to give you trouble.”

“And we’ll happily deal with it once he’s fully conscious and has the energy to argue. For now, he stays in that bed and _rests._ No sneaking him off anywhere, not on my watch.”

Nat smiled. “We’re lucky to have you, Dr. Carter.”

Dr. Carter smiled tightly back, her sharp eyes not trusting them for a second. “It’s only until my clinic is done being repaired from that bomb. When is that going to be again?”

“Soon, I imagine.”

“Uh-huh.”

Clint might make some terrible decisions in his life, but he wasn’t about to step in between these two women while they were in this weird stand off. The thing about Dr. Linda Carter was she was better known as the Night Nurse, who ran a private clinic just for vigilantes. Not that anyone was supposed to know about it, or who she was and what her real name was, that was all incredibly classified information, so naturally Clint knew nothing about it and was going to stay completely out of this.

(He might have gone to the clinic once or twice. Hey, partying with the Avengers didn’t always mean everyone came out unscathed.)

A horrible hacking sound fills the room and they whip around to Rogers, who lurched upright and tugged off his oxygen mask.

“ _Bucky_!” he called out and coughed again, “where is Bucky?!”

Dr. Carter and two other nurses rushed to his side and tried to get him to calm down. Lucky for them, it didn’t take long — his brief attempt to sit up drained him of what little energy he had, and he fell back against the bed. He didn’t pass out right away, but stayed conscious long enough to cough up more bloody phlegm. (Which, ew.) Dr. Carter was talking to him, but he wasn’t paying attention. He’d spotted Nat and Clint.

He tried to bat away the nurses’ hands and gestured to them.

“Where,” he wheezed.

Nat walked over to him and he focused on her as well as he could with eyes — well, _eye_ , his left eye was swollen shut — glazed over with the fever.

“Safe,” she said, leaning over his bed a little. “And so are you. Sleep now, and let the doctors take care of you, and then we’ll take you to him.”

He blinked slowly and breathed shallowly and Clint thought it was some kind of miracle he was functioning at all in his state. He was nearly as pale as the bandages wrapped around his head and neck with a feverish flush on his sharp cheekbones. The bruises on his face stood out in hues of dark purple and black, his lips chapped and colorless. He tried to swallow and groaned a little in pain.

Clint clenched his jaw, suddenly overwhelmed with anger for those two agents who’d beat him. And those Hydra agents who cornered him in his apartment. Hell, damn all of Hydra for messing with his best friend. Jesus, the guy didn’t deserve this.

Rogers looked from Nat to the oxygen mask, a silent acceptance to his fate. His heart rate slowed, and in approximately thirty seconds, he passed out again.

“So much for waiting until he was fully conscious for him to cause trouble.”

Nat stepped away from the bed and stalked out of the room into the corridor. He followed, grabbing her arm to make her stop.

“I know that look. What’s up?”

She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I have a hunch.”

“And?” 

“And I’ll tell you if I’m right.”  
  
“You’re always right.”

Her eyes flicked to his then back down the hall. “True.”

“So tell me now.”

She hesitated a moment, before turning to fully faced him. Outwardly she looked relaxed, but he could see the sweep of her eyes scanning the ward, looking for anyone who might be listening in. He had a feeling they wouldn’t be reporting this in to Hill.

“I’m going to pull on a thread. It may be nothing.”

“You pulling on threads never means it’s nothing.”

“I’m a spider, Clint. There’s nothing I do better than spin threads into my web.”

“Well,” he said, letting go of her arm. “Just make sure to let me know if you need some help catching flies in that web. I told you that ‘shooting the wings off a fly without killing it’ trick would come in handy.”

He knew her too well to miss the ghost of a smile across her lips.

“The thread I’m using is going to need to catch something bigger than flies.”

Shit. Nat was going to do some serious digging — whatever hunch she had, that thread probably came from some very well connected people. Or she suspected it did, and while Natasha Romanov was many things, being wrong about this stuff was not one of them. He just hoped she’d come get his help before her web became a noose.

“Good thing you can always count on circus boys to have more than one trick up their sleeve.”

“ _I lied to him,_ ” she signed.

They were not safe here, she meant.

He looked from her back to Rogers’ room.

“ _Go,_ ” he signed back. He hoped she unraveled the whole goddamn thing while she was at it. “ _I’ll be here._ ”

She stared at him for a moment, face unreadable.

“I’ll bring back food.”

She brushed by his shoulder, walked down the hall, and was gone.

He sighed. This was not his apartment in Bed-Stuy, not his couch, and it didn’t have his dog. Or any dogs, which was a huge reason why hospitals in general sucked. He made some more shitty office coffee and settled in by Rogers’ bed, trying not to imagine metal fingers gripping that skinny neck. Somehow he knew this was going to be the beginning of something, and beginnings always meant long nights and aching muscles. Clint kicked at the leg of Rogers’ bed.

“You better be worth it,” he said, and promptly fell asleep, half finished cup of coffee in his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!


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